CVAS Executive Committee Pres – Dell Vance - (435) 938-8328 Loaner Scope Coordinator/NSN Coordinator – [email protected] Garrett Smith – [email protected]

Vice Pres- Layne Pedersen – (801) 463-1701 Past President, Webmaster, Librarian – [email protected] Tom Westre – (435) 787-6380 [email protected]

Treasurer- Brad Kropp - (435) 755-0877 Public Relations – Lyle Johnson - [email protected]

Secretary – Dale Hooper - (435) 563-0608 [email protected]

Vol. 5 Number 12 August 2018 www.cvas-utahskies.org

No Meeting This Month – August Star September is getting closer and we want you to Parties begin thinking about running for office. There will There is no club meeting scheduled for August. be one or more open officer positions this , so During the summer months, we instead, concentrate please consider the opportunity to run for a club on getting outside for club (private) and public star officer position. You may run for any office. parties. The President’s Corner We have three star parties scheduled for August. By Dell Vance, CVAS President Watch the website and email for changes and more information. First is a CVAS star party at the Beaver Mountain parking lot on August 10th. The next morning (11 Aug) is a solar party at the Logan Library from 10:30am to noon. The last scheduled star party is one that is always fun. We will set up scopes in the parking lot of the Providence Macey’s to show shoppers the planets and the moon.

We also still need a liaison for the Logan Library Loaner Telescope. Please contact Dell Vance if you can help.

Elections for Officers in September

It’s hot here in Cache Valley. It isn’t nearly as bad as when I lived in Houston. There the temperature is about 95˚F with 98% humidity. It can be very unpleasant during the Summer time. However, here in Cache Valley it cools down very quickly when the goes down. It is great for astronomers.

Now if we could just get the smoke out of the air. I have been watching Mars this month and it is may have: Additional time spent putting on quite a show. It is very bright (third each month including Excom brightest object in the night sky now). I am hopeful Meeting: about 5-6 hours. that the giant dust storm on Mars and the smoke in our skies will clear so I can get a better look at it. Treasurer: Collects membership dues, writes Here is a picture of the Moon with all the smoke in checks for expenses, and reports the air. Pretty, but not very helpful for star-gazing. monthly the status of membership and financial activities each month at the Excom Meeting. Additional time spent each month including Excom Meeting: about 2 hours.

Time spent doing the leadership responsibilities may vary depending on how much effort and innovation that you apply to the tasks. As you can see, the time requirements can be minimal. I hope each member will take an active role in the leadership of the club at some time during their membership. The turn-over of members for the Excom can provide a good mix of ideas and opportunities. In addition, the past President also It is time to start getting ready for the elections of attends the Excom Meeting to provide continuity club leaders. I want to assure anyone that is and coaching to the committee. interested in running for one of the positions that they are not very time consuming or difficult to The election will be at the September Club Meeting, serve in. The Executive Committee (Excom) meets but now is the time to get excited about what you one night a month for about an hour to plan can do for the Club. programs and star parties. With five people on the Excom we usually have a lot of input on the items Be sure to get out and participate in the club considered. The Elected positions are: activities this month. Thanks again for your support. President: Chairs the committee and sets up the Excom meeting. He/She will also Clear Skies! conduct the monthly meeting during the Fall/Winter months and writes a column for the Newsletter. Additional time spent each month including Excom Meeting: about 4 hours.

Vice-President:Conducts meetings when President is not available. (This doesn’t happen very often.) He/She may also take assignments when needed by the Excom and provides important input at the Excom Meeting. Additional time spent each month including Excom Meeting: about 1 ½ Hours. Waxing gibbous moon, July 23rd (8:35pm) from East Secretary: Keeps the minutes of meetings, is the Beach Idaho State Park Campground (Bear Lake) - Courtesy Bonnie Schenk-Darrington editor of the Newsletter, and any special assignments that the Excom Club Announcement: through their website, but that is more work for [email protected] you). By Dale Hooper In September, this will become the main method Currently as a club we are simply maintaining a used to send out the newsletter. So if you wish to rather clumsy list of about 76 email addresses to continue to receive the newsletter – we urge you to handle club communications. This is the method reply to the invitation email. that we currently use to send out the newsletter and club email announcements. This is rather awkward If you are a paid member of the club and have at best and has definite maintenance issues. To help reservations about doing this we *really* want to with this, we thought it best to move to a group hear from you because we are planning to use this email system. There are several that are available as the main method of communicating with each such as yahoogroups, googlegroups and groups.io. other. We feel that this will greatly enhance our ability to communicate with each other as a club. After You don’t need to be a paid member of the club to giving it a fair amount of thought, we have decided sign up, but if you are a paid member and we to go with groups.io. don’t see you sign up – we will contact you to see if you need help or have questions or reservations. There are several things that groups.io provides to us as a club and also some things that groups.io This will be a private group – by invitation only so will not do to you. Groups.io will allow us to send we shouldn’t need to worry about spammers or email to everyone in the club. Members will also people posting inappropriate content. be able to communicate with other members of the club this way. We will also be able to have a wiki You will be able to send messages to other cvas- (help), we can conduct polls and there will also be a [email protected] email list members so we do files section. We can have a photos section and ask you to be respectful. The club executive calendar section, but we see these as a duplication committee will serve as moderators of the list. of the website – so we currently don’t plan to use groups.io for photos or calendaring. There is no We see this as a real opportunity to grow the club. charge to the club for using groups.io. There may be a few “growing pains” along the way so we ask for your patience. We will be sending out One very significant feature is that it will also allow an email message about this before we “go live”. us to create subgroups (such as our astro-imaging group) so that our special interest groups can Review of the Celestron free app “Sky coordinate activities. Members of the list, at large, Portal” will be able to join the subgroups and will be able to By Blaine Dickey view their messages. A few months ago I purchased a Celestron NexStar Unlike some services there will be no ads sent to Evolution 6 inch mainly for use at star parties. The you from groups.io and it won’t track any of your telescope is controlled by a free app called information. “SkyPortal”. This app makes it possible to easily control the telescope from a phone or tablet, using We plan to do a switch over to groups.io during IOS or Android. The app can also be used as a August so that it is in full use before our annual planetarium program for general use in the field or meeting. in star parties. It is a great app to take with you at star parties. For You will receive an email message from CVAS- example it is a great resource for learning the [email protected] which will include some and showing them to others before information from me about what we are doing. To pointing them out in the sky. It can be held up to the sign up for our email list, all you will need to do is sky in “Compass” mode to show the current sky reply to the email message. (You could also sign up depending on the way you are facing. You can easily zoom in to see stars fainter than naked eye There is over 4 hours of recorded audio and many brightness. more notes and images that are helpful in learning about the objects you are currently looking at. It also has a night vision mode to preserve your night vision. When someone asks a question about the object you are looking at you can click on the “Info” button after clicking on an object, and it will bring up an audio, or extensive notes and often an image that are useful in answering their question. This also works for Constellations if you want to know historical information about the that you are inquiring about. Using the “Search tool” and you will also find the categories “Sun & Planets”, “Moons”, “Asteroids”, “Comets”, “Satellites”, “Named Stars”, “Brightest Stars”, and “Nearest Stars”, “Deep Sky Objects”, “Messier Objects”, “Constellations”, “Asterisms” and “Meteor Showers”. Clicking on any of these categories will show many or all the objects in these categories visible at the current time or any other time you choose. Also you can click the “Center icon” and the star map will place your object on the center of the star map so you know exactly where it is located in the sky. The only real drawback I’ve noticed of the app “SkyPortal” is that the number of deep sky objects in the database is somewhat limited. While all of the Sky Portal from Celestron – courtesy Blaine Dickey 110 Messier and 109 Cadwell objects are in the app, there are only selected NGC objects. This is not too “Best of Sky” provides a custom list of the best big of a disadvantage if you know the RA and Dec objects to view based on the time, date, and location of the object you want to see. You can easily input you choose. This is a powerful tool in planning the RA and Dec of objects and have the Scope slew what you want to observe at your current or next to that location. star party. This is only a brief summary and review. There are According to Celestron you can simulate the night many useful features in addition if you are using it sky up to 100 in the past or future. You can to control a Celestron Scope. This is the best and also plan your next observing session for whatever easiest to use Planetarium App that I have used and date you choose, days, weeks, or months in the price is right! advance. You can animate Jupiter’s brightest moons and its Kidstronomy Corner Red Spot as they will appear at your chosen date. By Bonnie Schenk-Darrington You can also animate important conjunctions of planets, of the moon, as well as lunar and solar Last month I focused on a couple of resources for eclipses as they will appear in the sky from your getting tween- and teenage girls interested in location. astronomy, engineering, and science generally. This month, Dale asked me to focus on some books for You can also see the current position of comets, younger kids. I think I picked some winners this asteroids, and satellites located in your night sky month! map and animate them as they move across the sky. There’s nothing cute or girlified about this book, however! This book is about serious people doing serious work, and stars minifigures based on real space pioneers who also happened to be women. The book shows LEGO scenes of these talented heroines doing their jobs.

The book has 18 pages of text with 1 – 3 brief sentences per page. At the end, it has a quiz and an index. At the beginning, it has a table of contents. So, I really liked that it made proper nonfiction book format expected and accessible to small children. While DK rates this as a book for 3 – 5- year-olds, I would guess that the reading level might realistically be more on a first-grade level (ages 6 – 7). And your little reader will need help with the scientists’ names and words like astronaut, amazing, computers, Endeavour, and so on. Don’t let that scare you away, though. The illustrations are engaging and the grinning minifigures made me smile. Dolan, Hannah. 2018. LEGO Women of NASA: Space Heroes (DK Readers Level 1). New My son, Dane, who is 8, loves all things LEGO. He York: DK Penguin Random House. saw the book on my desk and asked if he could read Ages 3 – 5 years it. He liked it a lot. “Even though it’s about girls?” I $4.99 on Amazon.com asked. “Yeah,” he replied, as if he found this a https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1465472908/r strange question for me to ask. He thought the ef=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 LEGO satellite and Space Shuttle depicted looked super cool. He told me I should mention that he had

(5 out of 5 planets) no trouble with words like amazing, and so on (though please keep in mind that his reading level is I was never much into LEGOs as a child, so it several years higher than that recommended by the surprised me a bit when all three of my kids publisher). But he really tripped over the names of developed an obsession with them. This book the scientists featured. He even enjoyed the quiz. caught my eye because my daughter Gabriela used to collect all sorts of girl-oriented LEGO sets. She is There is a matching LEGO set, should you wish to almost fifteen now and doesn’t play with them purchase it. (I didn’t, but . . . ) My caveat is that, anymore, but a few years ago, someone at LEGO while the book is most appropriate for preschoolers must have woken up and realized that they were and early elementary schoolers, the LEGO set says missing out on roughly 50 percent of the market. it’s appropriate for ages 10 and up. So, keep that in One of the things I hated about LEGOs as a kid was mind—your little one may need quite a bit of extra that the people all seemed to be male, and the sets help to put the LEGOs together. On the other hand, all seemed geared toward making “boy things.” the minifigures in both the book and the set appear Now, LEGO makes—for lack of a better word— to be regular LEGO minifigures—but the Space cute LEGO sets with pink and purple bricks, girl Shuttle in both the book and the set appears to be minifigures, and animals like kittens and unicorns. made of DUPLO blocks (DUPLO blocks are And I’m not criticizing that sales strategy—don’t basically LEGO blocks for toddlers and get me wrong. I like kittens and unicorns as much preschoolers; the blocks are bigger for easy as the next girl. manipulation by little hands, and so as not to be accidentally swallowed). So, the Space Shuttle, at least, may be easier to put together than you expect.

This is such a cool book, and I hope that LEGO will or her own. Each star in the illustrations is create some follow-up books staring more embossed with silver foil and pictured to show its pioneering space scientists, both male and female. size relative to other stars nearby it. The text accompanying each illustration briefly gives a story The matching LEGO set can be found at the or an explanation for each animal—and I felt that following Amazon address: amount of text for each picture was just right. Along https://www.amazon.com/LEGO-Ideas-Women- with the gorgeous illustrations, there are star charts 21312- for both the northern and southern hemispheres. For Building/dp/B071W77MBJ/ref=pd_bxgy_14_2?_en older children, a 2-page spread at the back of the coding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B071W77MBJ&pd_rd_r= book gives a more detailed explanation about what 0DKY966KGT9NDVHP9CZR&pd_rd_w=qrvzO& stars are, how to read a sky map, constellations, and pd_rd_wg=nh2m3&psc=1&refRID=0DKY966KGT how many stars got their names. 9NDVHP9CZR. I frequently have trouble finding the pictures in constellations. I think I might be a very literal and not terribly imaginative person. Anyway, this book was incredibly helpful to me in revealing the pictures the ancients saw in the sky. And the illustrations also don’t just show the big stars—they show the small ones. One of my struggles is separating the “star clutter” from the more important stars that make up the picture. This book makes it crystal clear.

In my copy, to help myself remember, I marked on each page the Latin name of the constellation depicted, as well as the hemisphere in which it is found.

Mitton, Jacqueline (text), Christina Balit Dane found this book on my desk. He sneaked it (illustrations), and Wil Tirion (star charts). away and read it, and later told me he liked it a lot. I 1998. Zoo in the Sky: A Book of Animal asked him if he might be able to find some of the Constellations. Washington, D.C.: National constellations now that he had seen the book, and he Geographic Society. said yes, if he could take the book with him to compare it to the sky. He liked that it included some Ages 6 – 9 years constellations (mostly southern ones) he had not $7.74 (paperback) or $16.65 (hardcover) on seen before. He was especially impressed by the Amazon.com constellation Draco: “Holy cow! That’s in the sky?!”

(5 out of 5 planets) So, I think you can’t go wrong with this book. It’s a

winner! Maybe many of you are familiar with this beautiful book, since it’s been available for 20 years. But I had not seen it before and was immediately Planets Take Center Stage in August – captivated by the beautiful pictures. I found it to be Call for Club Members’ Observations as intelligent as it is beautiful. I bought it in and Images paperback, but now I’m regretting not buying the By Tom Westre hardback version. This summer has been a perfect time to view the This book is ideal both for an adult to read to a planets. It only gets better in August. younger child, and for an older child to read on his Venus is bright after the Sun sets in the evening. Newsletter. Send me a short email with your telescopic descriptions and/or images. We will put As you move east you next see Jupiter at magnitude your images in the photo gallery of our website. -2.1. Its 38 arc seconds just a bit small from the Send your reports/images to [email protected]. 44.7 when it reached opposition on May 1. If you plan to image the planets, use as large an Moving east we next see the ringed planet Saturn. aperture as you can along with a good quality It reached opposition on June 27th, at that time it Barlow and a high powered lens such as a 12 or 10 was magnitude 0.0 and 18.4 arc seconds. During mm. These planets are low in the southern sky so August it is still bright at magnitude +0.2 and 18 arc they can give a challenge for imaging. Try different seconds. magnifications until you get the best result. The best images will come from a dedicated planetary Continuing east we find Mars. It reached camera. If you don’t have one try to image with opposition on July 27 when its magnitude was -2.8 whatever camera you have a DSLR or smartphone at 24.3 arc seconds. By September 1 it will be will work. magnitude -2.1 at 20.8 arc seconds. On July 31 Mars was the closest to the at 35,785,000 Solar Minimun Update miles. The next time Mars will be this large will be in 2035. As of July 28th the Sun has been without sunspots for 30 of the past 31 days. The last time the Sun Be sure to invite your family and neighbors over to went this long was in 2009. As the Sun goes into view the Parade of the Planets. a deep solar minimum the earth’s magnetosphere weakens allowing more cosmic rays to get in. For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere these planets especially Mars are near the southern CVAS Loaner Telescope horizon and we see them through more atmosphere so the farther south you go the better. CVAS provides a 10 inch Dobsonian telescope to club members. Contact Garrett Smith to make As you observe Mars can you identify surface arrangements to use this telescope. Garrett can be features like Syrtis Major (a dark, triangular area), contacted by email at [email protected]. Chryse, Elysium, the Hellas Basin just to name a few. The best surface features will be the polar caps. This year the south polar cap will tilt 11 degrees towards us.

Image from Mile High Astronomy- courtesy Tom Westre Although Mars is biggest on July 31, it will remain bright into August.

Get out and view or image these planets. We would like to hear your reports for our September

Binocular Supports Objects which rank at least three stars in The Night Sky Observer’s Guide ( is in Volume 2) have The club now has available a number of mostly been included. As usual, the table is organized completed binocular supports. These supports are according to increasing values. being sold to club members at cost. These supports just need the binocular attachment – which is tailored to the type of binocular being mounted.

Please contact Ned Miller or Dell Vance if you are interested in purchasing a binocular support. The images below show what they look like with binoculars attached as well as an image showing them folded for storage.

Completed Binocular Support (with binos attached) - Courtesy Ned Miller

IAU and Sky& Tel - Roger Sinnott & Rick Fienberg

Object R.A. Dec. α Lyrae () (Multiple 18h36.9m +38°47’ star) ε Lyrae (Double-double) 18h44.3m +39°40’ (Quad. star) NGC 6703 (Galaxy mag 18h47.3m +45°33’ Binocular support (folded for storage) - Courtesy Ned Miller 11.3) β Lyrae (Shellak) (Variable 18h50.1m +33°22’ Spotlight on Lyra, the Lyre or Harp star) By Dale Hooper Stephenson 1 (Open cluster) 18h53.5m +36°55’

Lyra is one of the smaller constellations and is Messier 57 (Ring Nebula) 18h53.6m +33°02’ situated between Cygnus and Hercules. Lyra is (Planetary nebula) home to the brightest member of the Summer R Lyrae () 18h55.3m +43°57’ triangle, Vega. Science fiction fans will remember Σ2470 (Double star) 19h08.8m +34°46’ that the alien signal in the book/movie Contact was Σ2474 (Double star) 19h09.1m +34°36’ received from Vega. It is also the home to a Messier 56 (Globular cluster) 19h16.6m +30°11’ showpiece planetary nebula, the Ring Nebula (M57) RR Lyrae (Variable star) 19h25.5m +42°47’ and a fine globular cluster (M56). But it also contains one of the premier multiple star systems, the double – double ε Lyrae. The two main components of ε Lyrae (ε1 and ε2) form a wide double that is easily split. But each of these is also double and requires fairly high power to resolve)

24 Aug Voyager 2 flies past Neptune (1989) 25 Aug Voyager 2 flies past Saturn (1981) Spitzer Space Telescope launched (2003) 26 Aug Full Moon Mercury at greatest western elongation (18°) 27 Aug Neptune 2° north of Moon 28 Aug William Herschel discovers Saturn’s moon Enceladus (1789) 30 Aug Uranus 5° north of Moon

The constellation Lyra as it can be seen with the unaided eye. © T. Credner & S. Kohle, AlltheSky.com - used with permission

CVAS Minutes – July 2018

There was no CVAS meeting in July.

Upcoming Star Parties

10 Aug CVAS Star Party – Beaver Mountain 11 Aug Solar Party, 10:30am – Noon Logan Library 17 Aug Public Star Party – Macey’s Parking Lot, Providence 7 Sep CVAS Star Party 8 Sep Solar Party, 10:30am – Noon Logan Library 14 Sep Public Star Party – Nibley Heritage Park

Upcoming Events

01 Aug Maria Mitchell born (1818) 04 Aug Last Quarter Moon Juno 1.2° south of Moon 06 Aug Aldebaran 1.1° south of Moon Curiosity rover lands on Mars (2012) 10 Aug Magellan arrives at Venus (1990) 11 Aug New Moon, partial solar eclipse Asaph Hall discovers Deimos (moon of Mars) (1877) Perseid Meteors 12 Aug Perseid Meteors 13 Aug Perseid Meteors 14 Aug Venus 6° south of Moon Perseid Meteors 17 Aug Jupiter 6° south of Moon Asaph Hall discovers Phobos (moon of Mars) (1877) 18 Aug First Quarter Moon 19 Aug John Flamsteed born 1646) 21 Aug Saturn 2° south of Moon

CACHE VALLEY ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION FORM Member # ______

NAME:______First Middle Initial Last

Address:______Street City State Zip Code

Home Phone: ______Cell Phone:______

Work Phone : ______Occupation :______

Email Address: ______

How did you learn about CVAS?

_____Website ____Star Party ____CVAS Member ____Other ______

Membership: $20 a year

Tell us about yourself: Do you have a special interest in astronomy? Do you have special skills? Are you willing to volunteer on CVAS projects or attend public outreach star parties? Astro equipment owned. ______

______

By signing this application, I acknowledge I have access to the CVAS website, cvas-utahskies.org , and the CVAS Constitution. I agree to abide by the constitution.

Signature: ______Date:______

Bring this form to the meeting or Mail Application to:

Brad Kropp, CVAS Treasurer 1573 E 1425 N Logan, UT 84341

For any questions contact our Treasurer at [email protected] or our Secretary Dale Hooper at [email protected]